New bees and honey question

iam using honeyflow flowhive which is a flowhive on the bottom and flowsuper with frames on top .

i have bees but i dont think its enough

Take the super off and run them as a single box hive till they build up.

Cheers
Rob.

1 Like

How many bees do you have? Can you post some pictures? One method to introduce more bees to an existing hive is to put the new bees in the super separated with newspaper with some small tears. The smells are mingled and after a day or two they chew through the paper. Be sure it’s not too warm otherwise they will perish.

I meant the bees you want to add to your flow hive: What kind of box are they in?

this is my hive

still not sure I am understanding, this needs to building it self up quit a bit before adding your Flow Frames. look at this video. I am just thinking of adding a second brood box and then maybe in a month or 2 will add my floor frames box and on top

Looks like they need feeding urgently, as they have hardly drawn any comb out.

I agree with the other comments - restrict the bees to one box (no Flow super on top yet).

If that is all the bees you have you need to make a five frame nuc box up and transfer them. The box you have them in is too big for them. You also need to be feeding them LOTS to get them going. Once they have filled the nuc you can put them in the full sized box. Once that is full you could consider your honey super if there is a flow, otherwise just leave it off and let them build up in population and resources. Strong hives produce harvestable honey, weak hives are just a host for every pest in the area.

Cheers
Rob.

1 Like

what should i feed them ?

Granulated sugar dissolved in water at a 1:1 ratio. So 1kg of sugar to 1 liter of water.

You will need to buy a feeder - don’t just put a bucket of it in front of the hive! :astonished: You can use a contact feeder (pail feeder), a hive top feeder or a Boardman feeder. But they need feeding urgently.

or block off half the hive and entrance to one side place the bees in other side and restrict entrance down to 3/4" open so that guard bees will be fewer and place entrance feeder in remaining space. Feed, Feed, Feed new hive till they are in control, all frames should have honey brood or pollen stores, then open the hive move the filled frames to center and fill in outside with waxed frames to add more brood, when the hive has built up then add another brood box when that is filled add the flow to the mis, by then it should be three boxes high brood, brooindent preformatted text by 4 spacesd, flow this will not happen overnight, wait your and move slow to build.

1 Like

Someone told me that you are not supposed to harvest honey the first year. Is that true?

It depends. You need to leave your bees with enough honey to overwinter successfully. Depending on the nectar flow and the productivity of your queen, you may or may not get enough food stores in the brood boxes to have an excess to harvest. It is very unpredictable.

I think it is fair to say that you should not expect to harvest in the first year, but if you are lucky, you may be able to do so.

1 Like

What if you take to much from them and just feed with 1:1 and bee patties for the overwinter just to give them a better chance of survivaling.

You can do that. Sugar is cheaper than honey so many commercial beeks do that.

1 Like

If you are in it for maximum honey production then that is the way to go BUT it comes at a cost for the bees. We then wonder why hives are weak, don’t produce as well, get parasites, etc.

Cheers
Rob.

You can certainly do that. But honey, bee bread and pollen have nutrients in them that we can’t replace with syrup and bee patties. They do much better if you just leave them enough of their own resources.

Also, the pH levels of honey and sugar syrup differ. Sugar syrup’s pH allows for some bad things to develop in a bee’s gut.

Let set up their home first, then build up from there.